“What weight does the word of an unknown young woman have in the face of the capricious star?” “

” It’s okay ? Doesn’t he bother you too much? “

How many times have I been asked this question in those nascent 1990s? I’m 24 years old. I am finishing a master’s degree in political science. I dream of journalism. I want to bear witness to my time. And I write part of the most watched television news in France. A godsend for the start of a career.

Invariably, I answer: ” I manage. “

And that’s been true for over a year.

I asked that we be two on the station. I avoided the one-on-one in his office. I feared him. I was careful. I took in his anger without complaining. He was old enough to be my father. I didn’t like him.

And then one evening, I no longer knew how to manage: a few sticky minutes whose story is reserved for investigators.

I shut up. For a long time.

Mouth sewn, because I’m sane.

What weight does the word of an unknown young woman have, tiny in the face of the capricious star, national glory, who reigns over the ratings without countervailing power? We would have eliminated the messenger rather than hearing his annoying message. Talking about it to my lovers would have placed them in a chivalrous impasse: the worst thing would have been for them to seek to defend me or to avenge me. I didn’t want to be pitied. I didn’t want to be a victim. I didn’t want to be overwhelmed, to think that I had something to do with it. Everything turned against me: shame, rotten reputation, sofa promotion. I knew it. The balance of power was entirely to my detriment. Talking would have condemned me to endless layers of additional violence. Talking would have been professionally and socially suicidal. I wasn’t.

I protected myself alone, with the means at hand. I announced that I would not be doing a new season in this position. He decreed that I was unprofessional. The hierarchy of TF1’s editorial staff has aligned itself. “You’ll laugh at it in ten years, but you’re not made for this job”, I was told.

I left for LCI, which invented continuous information, where I built fifteen years of an honorable career. I never worked in the editorial staff of TF1 again. I never watched “8 pm” again. I hid my anguish the rare times we have crossed paths.

My silence has helped to raise the wall of omnipotence and impunity.

TF1 could smile at its cavalier king who makes “Little kisses on the neck”, believe in a heavy and repetitive flirt, warn young women of the danger, treacherously denounce their taste for power and let them go to the pipe breaker. He was so charming! A man covered with women, where is the harm? Isn’t seduction one of the garments of glory?

The question is poorly put. The terms are to be reversed: could my employer ignore the unhealthy atmosphere imposed by his star? ? Did I work safely? Have I been protected?

The silence resulting from shame and the power relationship is the banality of rape, whether it takes place in a world under the spotlight or in the shadow of the office of a deputy director of a small company.

The years have passed. The water flowed under the bridges, sometimes black, sometimes clear. I put the responsibilities back in their place. Shame has frayed. Prescription has set in.

Twenty-eight years later, the complaint of a young woman whom I do not know came to awaken the buried memory of those sticky minutes. It’s a classic rape case: we keep quiet until others need you. We speak for justice to be done.

In this specific case, something intrigued me: the women who want to be named are the ones who have avoided sex. For others, anonymity is essential. It is as if, as soon as it gets too close to you, the man’s penis has the magical power to muzzle you, as if there remains a trace of the culture of lost honor, of shameful dirt.

I know the risks I take in speaking with my face uncovered ; that we invoke “An unseemly quest for notoriety” ; let it be understood that I would have anything to gain by pretending to be a victim. Seeing my photo next to hers will reduce me to those sticky minutes. Each time, it will be one more piece in the silencing machine that so actively reinforces the fortress of impunity.

People who love me know. My children encourage me to talk, some of my friends to beware. If I can’t testify today, who ever can?